[This post by Derik Andreoli, Senior Analyst at Mercator International LLC, is republished with permission from The Oil Drum.]

In 2009, U.S. oil production began to climb after declining for 22 of the previous 23 years.

The shale oil production of the Bakken formation, which straddles the Montana-North Dakota border and stretches into Canada, has been a significant contributor to this temporary uptick in oil production.

The Bakken boom has inspired a number of prominent commentators to resurrect the energy independence meme. Daniel Yergin was first at bat, asserting in an essay published by The Wall Street Journal that rising prices and emerging technologies (especially hydraulic fracturing) will significantly drive up world liquid fuels production over the coming decade(s). Ultimately, Mr. Yergin argues that tight supplies lead to high fuel prices, and high fuel prices will bring previously inaccessible oil to the market. The trouble with this line of thinking is that high prices aren’t merely a symptom of the supply problem; high prices are the problem.

After Mr. Yergin stole first base through this apparently convincing display of contortionist logic, the next up to bat was Ed Crooks who recently penned an analysis piece for the Financial Times. In this piece, Mr. Crooks declares that “the growth in U.S. and Canadian production from new sources, coupled with curbs on demand as a result of more efficient use of fuel, is creating a realistic possibility that North America will be able to declare oil independence.”

Mr. Crooks thus ‘balances’ rising production from shale oil and Canadian tar sands against declining consumption, which he mistakenly chalks up to efficiency gains rather than the deleterious effects of the greatest recession since the Great Depression. Beyond this obvious blunder, Mr. Crooks manages an even greater and far more common gaffe by neglecting to integrate decline rates of mature fields into his analysis.

But in a game where the media is the referee and the public doesn’t know the rules, Mr. Crooks manages to get on base by knocking a foul ball into the bleachers. With Yergin on second and Crooks on first, Edward Luce steps up to plate and takes a swat at the energy independence meme, directing the ‘greens’ to look away as “America is entering a new age of plenty”. And while the greens looked away, Mr. Luce took a cheap shot at clean energy through an attack on the federal government’s support for the now bankrupt solar panel manufacturer, Solyndra. Luce thus willingly employs the logical fallacy of hasty generalization to sway his audience. Of course the Solyndra bankruptcy is no more generalizable to the solar energy industry than BP’s Macondo oil spill is to all offshore oil production, but in a game of marketing one-upmanship one should not expect a balanced and rigorous evaluation of the possibilities.

With the bases loaded and oil prices remaining stubbornly high as tensions in the Middle East and North Africa persist, the crowd is getting anxious. And the crowd should be anxious. After all, tight supplies and rising oil prices strain personal finances and threaten to send our fragile economy back into recession. It is, therefore, unsurprising that the public is as eager to consume the myth of everlasting abundance, as they are eager to consume these scarce resources.

While the Bakken boom offers a hopeful story in which American ingenuity and nature’s endless bounty emancipate us from energy oppression and dependence on evil and oppressive foreign dictators, musings of energy independence are premature, misguided, and misleading. The problem with the Bakken story as told by Crooks and others is that it lacks historical context. Referring to recent developments as an energy revolution implies that there are no lessons to be learned from history. But as Mark Twain put it, “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”

Oil and gas company Perenco is buying a 70% interest in the Teak, Samaan and Poui Block (TSP), offshore Trinidad and Tobago. The interest in the fields, located offshore south east of Trinidad, has been bought from Repsol E&P T&T, a subsidiary of the Spanish oil company Repsol. Repsol has rights to eight blocks, one […]

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Singapore-based provider of offshore marine services Pacific Radiance has delayed a charter for one of its offshore support vessels, that is still under construction, by a year. In November 2014, the company’s joint venture with DOT Holdings, named DOT Radiance, secured a long-term charter contract for one of its vessels ahead of its expected delivery in 20 […]

The global oil and gas exploration spending, which has been trimmed since the oil prices went down in 2014, will further fall in 2017. It might start rising in the next few years, but not to the pre-slump levels, a graph released by Wood Mackenzie shows. Also, on the oil prices, the energy intelligence group […]

Offshore service vessel provider Farstad Shipping has been awarded several new charter contracts in Australia with ConocoPhillips, Inpex, and McDermott. Farstad reported on Friday that ConocoPhillips Australia Exploration has issued a letter of intent (LOI) to the 2014-built anchor handler (AHTS) Far Sirius and the 2010-built AHTS Far Saracen to support the […]

After months of talks with creditors Norwegian offshore vessel owner Olympic Ship has received restructuring support. “The company is pleased to announce that the discussions have been successful and that the company has now obtained support for a financial restructuring of the Group from key stakeholders of the Group,” Olympic Ship said on Friday. The […] […]

The previously announced merger between offshore vessel owners REM Offshore and Solstad’s Solship Invest has been completed. The merger between the two Norwegian companies was registered in the Norwegian Register of Business Enterprises on Friday, December 9, 2016. The merged company will have a fleet of 61 offshore vessels, consisting of construction suppor […]

American oil and gas services provider Helix Energy Solutions is still waiting for its 4-year well intervention contract with Petrobras for the vessel Siem Helix 1 to start after experiencing unexpected delays. At the Capital One Securities 11th Annual Energy Conference on Wednesday, Helix said that its chartered vessel Siem Helix 1 was working through Petro […]

REM Offshore has completed its financial restructuring and merged with Solship, a wholly owned subsidiary of Solstad Offshore. The merger was completed as a statutory triangular merger, whereby... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Norwegian provider of subsea and offshore construction vessels, Olympic, said on Friday it has obtained support from its key stakeholders for the financial restructuring of the Group. Through... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Offshore services player Helix Energy Solutions has experienced ‘unexpected delays’ with its operations in Brazil as it anticipated an earlier start of its well intervention campaign for... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Oslo-listed SeaBird, a seismic data provider for oil and gas companies, has signed an agreement to provide a vessel for an upcoming 2D seismic survey in South America. The project is anticipated to... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

ROV service provider, ROVOP, has recorded sales of almost £10 million in the second half of its financial year and EBITDA of £3.5 million for the six months to September 2016, an increase of 14... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

4Subsea, a Norwegian technology company specialised in production riser systems and subsea well systems, has launched Portable Annulus Tester (PAT), a product that automates integrity testing of... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

OceanGate said it has started the construction of the Cyclops 2, a manned submersible with a depth range of 4,000 meters (13,125 feet). The company has ordered two titanium hemispheres and two... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Kraken Sonar Inc. informed that effective January 1, 2017, its new German subsidiary, Kraken Robotik GmbH (KRG) will start operations at the Bremen Innovation and Technology Centre (BITZ). In... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Toronto-based underwater mineral exploration company Nautilus informed that it has accepted the resignation of Cynthia Thomas from its board, effective Wednesday, December 7, 2016. Thomas joined the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Statoil’s active leases in the Gulf of Mexico

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